No one was more skeptical about using magnets for pain relief than Dr. Carlos Vallbona, former chairman of the department of community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

So Dr. Vallbona was amazed when a study he did found that small, low intensity magnets worked, at least for patients experiencing symptoms that can develop years after polio.

Dr. Vallbona had long been fascinated by testimonials about magnets from his patients, and even from medical leaders.
But his interest in magnet therapy became more serious in 1994 when he and a colleague, Carlton F. Hazlewood, tried them for their own knee pain.
The pain was gone in minutes.
"That was too good to be true," Dr. Vallbona said.

Dr. Vallbona knew that the power of suggestion can fool both patient and doctor.
But he also wondered; could strapping small, low intensity magnets to the most sensitive areas of the body for several minutes relieve chronic muscular and joint pains among patients in his post polio clinic at Baylor's Institute for Rehabilitation Research.

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Aware of the medical profession's skepticism about magnet therapy, Dr. Vallbona sought to conduct science's most rigorous type of study.
Participants would agree to allow the investigators to randomly assign them to groups getting treatment with active magnets or sham devices.
But neither the patients nor the doctors treating them would know what therapy was used on which patient.

First, Dr. Vallbona informally tested magnets on a few patients.
One was a priest with post-polio syndrome who celebrated mass with difficulty due to marked back pain that prevented him from raising his left hand.
After applying a magnet for a few minutes the pain was gone, Dr. Vallbona recalled, and, "the priest said this was a miracle."

Then a human experimentation committee allowed Dr. Vallbona to test 50 volunteers with magnets that at 300 to 500 gauss, were slightly stronger than refrigerator magnets.
They were made in different sizes so they could fit over the anatomic area identified as setting off their pain.

It was difficult to design a system to prevent participants from learning whether they were being treated with a magnet or a sham.

So Dr. Vallbona asked Magnaflex Inc., a magnet manufacturer in Corpus Christi, Tx., to prepare active magnets and inactive devices that could not be told apart.
The devices were labeled in code.

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Dr. Vallbona's findings have let him to try to carry out a larger study in several medical centers, and they are expected to lead other investigators to conduct their own studies.

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Dr. Vallbona said he did not know why magnets worked for many post-polio patients but not for others, or why some said they felt improvement in areas of the body far distant from where the magnet was applied.

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Had it been done with government aid, Dr. Vallbona said, it would have cost about $50,000 dollars.

We are proud to announce that renowned Baylor College of Medicine physician and professor, Dr. Carlos Vallbona, will be our Honorary Chair for the event.
Harris Health System recently recognized Dr. Vallbona by dedicating the Vallbona Health Center, one of Harris Health's thirteen Community Centers.

A study made by Dr. Carlos Vallbona was issued and the results were published in the edition of November Archives of Medical Physical and Rehabilitation are as follows :

"Most of the patients tested in one study who received treatment magnetic acknowledge recorded a significant decrease in the level of pain they are.
The majority of patients given placebo (magnet off) was reported to complain there is no direct any effect on them"

Dr. Carlos Vallbona is a professor of family medicine and community medical and physical and rehabilitation at Baylor.He also is a director of the Clinical Post-Polio at TIRR in Houston, USA.

Dr. Vallbona had been evaluating the use of therapeutic magnets in adults diagnosed with the syndrome of post-polio suffering from pain dramatically on joints that have been identified with pain in the muscles them.

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"Seventy-six percent of patients with magnetic active reported a decrease in pain, but only 19 percent of patients treated with placebo felt improvement," said Dr Vallbona.
No patient reported side effects of treatment were carried out on them.

By Dr. Carlos Vallbona, he has no explanation clear away the pain significantly and quickly perceived by the patients in our study.
On assuming his potential energy magnetic influence receptor pains in joints or muscles or decrease the sensation pain in the brain.

Dr. Carlos Vallbona said there was a lot of research should be conducted to determine whether therapy magnet should be recommended as an alternative to the treatment standard for use on patients post-polio, such as physical therapy, wire tooth support, relaxing muscle, anti-inflammatory and treatments others as well.

"The majority of patients in the study who received treatment with a magnet reported a significant decrease in pain, and most of the patients who were given a placebo, or inactive magnet, reported very little or no improvement," said principle investigator Dr. Carlos Vallbona.He is a professor of family and community medicine and physical medicine and rehabilitation at Baylor and director of the Post-Polio Clinic at TIRR.

Vallbona evaluated the magnet therapy in adults diagnosed with post-polio syndrome who were experiencing arthritic pain in the joints or had identifiable points of pain in their muscles.